THE COLOSSUS AT RHODES.
This was a celebrated brazen image of Apollo, of the enormous hight of one hundred and five Grecian, or one hundred and twenty-five English feet, placed at the entrance of one of the harbors of the city of Rhodes, (anciently Rhodus,) which is about twenty miles from the coast of Lycia and Caria, in the Mediterranean sea. The island of Rhodes is about one hundred and twenty miles in circumference, and was early occupied by a colony of Greeks from Crete and Thessaly, who in time became both wealthy and powerful. Their capital city was on the east of the island; it was built in the form of an amphitheater, and had numerous splendid buildings, among which was a temple to Apollo. Having for a time submitted to the power of Alexander the Great, they afterward refused to assist Antigonus in his war with Egypt, when he sent his son Demetrius against them, with an immense fleet and army. They, however, being aided by Ptolemy, king of Egypt, were enabled to repulse his forces and to oblige him to agree to a peace. And he being thus reconciled to them, in admiration of the courage they had displayed, presented to them all the engines he had employed in the attack, by the sale of which, for three hundred talents, they raised the famous colossus, a view of which is given in the cut.
THE COLOSSUS OF RHODES.
This immense statue, as already said, was of brass, and was erected in honor of Apollo, the tutelary god of the island, in acknowledgment of the protection he was supposed to have rendered the Rhodians in their recent conflict. It was the workmanship of Chares, (a pupil of Lysippus, a celebrated sculptor and statuary of Greece,) who, with an assistant, was engaged in the work for more than twelve years. The hight of the statue, as already said, was one hundred and twenty-five feet; its thumb was so large that few people could grasp it; and the fingers were each larger than the bodies of statues of ordinary size. It was hollow, and to counterbalance the weight, and render it steady on its feet, its legs were lined with heavy masonry; and within them, were winding staircases leading to the top of the statue, from which one could easily see Syria, and the ships sailing to Egypt. It is supposed to have stood, with distended legs, on the two moles which formed the entrance of the harbor; but as the city had two harbors, one twenty, and the other fifty feet wide at the entrance, it has been supposed to have been at the narrowest. It bore a light, or lantern, so as to serve as a light-house; but whether on the head, or in one of the hands, as represented in the cut, is not certainly known. The statue was erected B. C. 300, and after having stood about sixty years, was thrown down by an earthquake. After its fall, the Rhodians solicited help from the kings of Macedonia and Egypt, and in other countries, to enable them to restore it; and so great was the commercial importance of Rhodes, that their appeal was promptly met by magnificent gifts; but the oracle at Delphos forbade them again to raise the colossus. The statue then remained in ruins for the space of eight hundred and ninety-four years, when, in the year 672 A. D., it was sold by the Saracens, who were then masters of the island, to a Jewish merchant of Edessa, who loaded nine hundred camels with the metal which had composed it, and which, estimated at eight hundred pounds for each camel-load, would have amounted to seven hundred and twenty thousand pounds’ weight.
The character of Rhodian art was a mixed Græco-Asiatic style, which seems to have delighted in executing gigantic and imposing conceptions; for beside this celebrated colossus, (which was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world,) there were three thousand other statues adorning the city; and of these, about one hundred were on such a scale of size and magnificence, that the presence of any one of them would have been thought sufficient to dignify almost any other spot. The architecture of Rhodes was of the most stately character: the plan of the city was by the same architect who built the Piræus at Athens; and all was designed with such symmetry, that Aristides remarks, “It is as if it had been one house.” The streets were wide, and of unbroken length; and the fortifications, strengthened at intervals with lofty towers, did not appear, as in other cities, detached from the buildings which they inclosed, but by their boldness, and decision of outline, hightened the unity and conception of the groups of architecture within. The temples were decorated with paintings, by Protogenes, Zeuxis, and other celebrated artists of the school of Rhodes; and of one of these pictures, it is said, that when taken to Rome, it was the object of universal admiration. The island, after passing through various fortunes, has, for a long time, been part of the Turkish empire.